Economy

Tesco cuts 180 head office jobs

UK grocer adds 250 roles in online and personalisation push, strong profits coexist with permanent efficiency drive

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The UK’s largest grocer acknowledged that these proposed changes would undoubtedly be ‘difficult news’ for the staff members whose positions are at risk The UK’s largest grocer acknowledged that these proposed changes would undoubtedly be ‘difficult news’ for the staff members whose positions are at risk independent.co.uk
Tesco is expecting to make a profit of between £2.9 billion to £3.1 billion for the latest financial year (Jonathan Brady/PA) Tesco is expecting to make a profit of between £2.9 billion to £3.1 billion for the latest financial year (Jonathan Brady/PA) Jonathan Brady/PA

Tesco is reshaping its head office in Welwyn Garden City, cutting 180 roles while creating 250 new ones, according to The Independent. The UK’s largest grocer says the changes are meant to match “changing customer needs” and strengthen online, quick-commerce and personalisation work. The proposals are now in consultation with the Usdaw union.

On paper, the numbers look like growth: more jobs created than removed. In practice, it is a reallocation of labour toward the parts of the business where margins and measurement are clearer—digital ordering funnels, targeted promotions, and the back-end systems that decide what shoppers see and what stock gets moved. Tesco’s physical estate still does the expensive work of retail—staffed stores, refrigeration, shrink, security, and local delivery constraints—but the head office increasingly behaves like a software business bolted onto a logistics network. “Efficiency and agility” is the language companies use when the cost base is rising faster than they can raise prices, and when shareholders want proof that headcount is tied to revenue.

Tesco is also doing this from a position of strength. The company expects annual profit of £2.9bn to £3.1bn, and Worldpanel data cited by The Independent shows Tesco’s grocery market share rising to 28.7% in the three months to late December, its highest in more than a decade. That combination—strong performance alongside job losses—explains why unions focus on the “business case”: the company is not shrinking, it is choosing what kinds of work it wants to keep in-house. As more retail activity shifts to apps and delivery slots, the bottleneck moves from shelf-stacking to forecasting, routing, and the IT and analytics layers that decide which customer gets which offer.

All of it sits on top of the same constraint: the store still has to be open, goods still have to arrive, and energy and transport costs still hit the same profit-and-loss statement. So the reorganisation is less a one-off transformation than a recurring attempt to buy productivity through structure—moving people from general management and coordination to roles that can be benchmarked, automated, or scaled.

The entire reshuffle is confined to a single headquarters campus in Hertfordshire. The groceries are still sold in thousands of buildings that cannot be reorganised with a memo.